Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN THEY EXPECTEDI spent the next hour inside a bulletproof SUV.
Not because anyone asked me.
Luca Moretti gave an order, and suddenly my choices became theoretical.
“You’re kidnapping me.”
I sat against black leather while New York blurred beyond tinted windows.
Gideon sat across from me.
Luca sat beside him.
“No,” Luca said.
“You put me in an armored vehicle surrounded by six men with guns.”
“For your protection.”
“The distinction is getting philosophical.”
Something almost moved at the corner of his mouth.
Almost.
Gideon noticed.
His eyebrows lifted.
Apparently Luca Moretti nearly smiling was a rare atmospheric event.
“I need to go home,” I said.
“Not tonight.”
“My cat needs feeding.”
Luca stared at me.
“You have a cat.”
“Don’t sound so offended.”
“What’s its name?”
“Needle.”
Gideon coughed into his fist.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Are you laughing?”
“Never.”
Luca looked toward the window.
I could swear his mouth twitched.
The humor vanished when his phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes.”
Silence.
His eyes changed.
“Alive?”
More silence.
“Where?”
He ended the call.
“Rafael survived surgery.”
Gideon exhaled.
“Did he wake?”
“For thirty seconds.”
“What did he say?”
Luca looked directly at me.
“Ward.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
“He said your last name.”
“I’ve never met your driver.”
“We know.”
“Then why—”
“He also said Mercer.”
That name hit me like a fist.
I stopped breathing.
Luca noticed instantly.
“You know it.”
“No.”
Too quick.
Gideon leaned forward.
“You do.”
I stared at my hands.
My fingers were still marked with tailor’s chalk.
There was dried blood beneath one nail from the fitting room.
“Who is Mercer?” Luca asked.
“I said I don’t know.”
Luca’s voice remained quiet.
“I don’t enjoy lies.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then stop telling one.”
The SUV slowed.
I looked outside.
We weren’t at my apartment.
We were entering an underground garage beneath a limestone mansion on the Upper East Side.
I turned toward Luca.
“This isn’t my home.”
“No.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You cannot simply relocate people.”
“I can tonight.”
The garage doors sealed behind us.
Guards surrounded the vehicle.
Luca opened his door.
I stayed seated.
He waited.
“No.”
“Miss Ward.”
“I’m thirty-six years old. I am not getting out of a car because a terrifying man says my surname suspiciously.”
He looked at me.
“I’m not terrifying.”
Gideon stared at him.
I stared at him.
One guard outside actually looked away.
Luca sighed.
“Fine. I’ve been reliably informed I’m terrifying.”
“Better.”
He held out his hand.
I did not take it.
But I got out.
The Moretti residence was not what I expected.
No gold statues.
No velvet ropes.
No giant portraits of Luca looking murderous.
It was elegant, restrained, old.
Dark wood.
Cream stone.
Warm lamps.
A house built to survive generations.
A house that looked lonely.
A woman in her sixties rushed into the entry hall.
“Luca.”
He immediately kissed her cheek.
That surprised me more than the gunfire.
“Teresa, this is Eleanor Ward.”
“Ellie,” I corrected.
Teresa smiled warmly.
“Anyone who corrects Luca in the first ten seconds is welcome here.”
“I’m standing right here,” he said.
“Yes.”
She patted his cheek.
“That’s why I said it.”
I liked her immediately.
Luca looked resigned.
“Prepare the blue room.”
Teresa glanced at me, then him.
“Guest room?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
Her eyes sparkled with something dangerously maternal.
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Teresa.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I would never.”
She disappeared.
Gideon murmured, “She absolutely would.”
We moved into a study.
Luca shut the door.
Then he placed a photograph on the desk.
A man in his late sixties.
Sharp gray suit.
Cold blue eyes.
Silver hair.
My knees almost gave out.
“Daniel Mercer,” Luca said.
I knew the face.
Older.
Harder.
But unmistakable.
“My father.”
Silence.
Luca studied me.
Gideon stopped moving.
I hated the way the truth sounded aloud.
“Your father is Daniel Mercer?”
“Biological.”
“That distinction matters?”
“It does to me.”
I crossed my arms.
“He left when I was nine.”
Luca leaned against the desk.
“Why?”
“He liked money more than people.”
“Appropriate.”
“What is he to you?”
Luca looked at Gideon.
Gideon answered.
“Daniel Mercer spent twenty years building financial structures for organized crime families, private military brokers and sanctioned corporations.”
I laughed once.
Bitterly.
“That tracks.”
“He worked for my father,” Luca said.
My eyes rose.
“And?”
“He stole from him.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-eight million dollars.”
I swallowed.
“Then he vanished.”
Luca watched me carefully.
“When?”
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
I calculated.
I was nine.
The exact year my father walked out.
My throat tightened.
“I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised me.
“Why?”
“Because if you were part of Mercer’s world, you wouldn’t be living in a fifth-floor walk-up with a broken radiator.”
My eyes narrowed.
“You investigated me already?”
“While we were driving.”
“You’re insane.”
“Efficient.”
Gideon looked down.
Definitely hiding amusement.
I walked toward the fireplace.
“My mother spent years telling me my father was a coward.”
“She was right.”
“She said he ran from debt.”
“He did.”
“She never said mafia debt.”
Luca’s face tightened slightly.
“My father wasn’t mafia.”
I looked at him.
“Your bodyguards carry machine pistols.”
“My father was a businessman.”
“Of course.”
Gideon actually smiled.
Luca gave him a look.
The study door opened.
A guard entered.
“We found Vivien.”
“Where?”
“Her apartment.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She arrived thirty-two minutes ago.”
Luca turned fully toward him.
“How?”
“She claims someone abducted her from the fitting room and dumped her three blocks away.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at me.
“She’s lying.”
Luca gestured.
“Continue.”
“Her dress.”
“What about it?”
“It had a boned corset.”
They stared.
I sighed.
“Do any of you actually understand clothing?”
“No,” Gideon admitted.
“A dress like hers takes help to remove quickly. If someone dragged her through a service route, restrained her, transported her and dumped her, the dress would show damage. Ask your men whether the zipper, hooks or boning are torn.”
The guard touched his earpiece.
A moment later he shook his head.
“No damage reported.”
“There.”
Luca’s gaze darkened.
“She left voluntarily.”
“Or changed clothes,” Gideon added.
Luca’s phone buzzed.
A message.
He read it.
Then looked at me.
“Vivien says she wants to speak with you.”
“Me?”
“She says you are the only person she trusts.”
I laughed.
“That woman threatened my job twenty minutes before someone shot at me.”
“She specifically asked for Eleanor Ward.”
I felt cold.
Luca stepped closer.
“You’re not going.”
“Good.”
“Because it’s a trap.”
“Even better.”
Another message arrived.
This time Luca’s expression changed completely.
“What?”
He handed me the phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
My apartment.
My front door was open.
Inside, my living room had been destroyed.
Couch slashed.
Drawers emptied.
Fabric everywhere.
And sitting calmly in the center of my ruined dining table was my cat, Needle.
My relief lasted one second.
Then I saw what hung around his neck.
A red thread.
Attached to it was a tiny paper tag.
Three words.
ASK YOUR MOTHER.
My blood went cold.
“No.”
I handed the phone back.
“My mother died six years ago.”
Luca’s eyes stayed on me.
“Where are her things?”
I didn’t answer.
Because I suddenly remembered something.
One object I had never been able to throw away.
My mother’s sewing box.
Old walnut.
Brass corners.
Locked.
She had made me promise not to open the false bottom.
I always thought it was grief making her strange.
Luca saw my face.
“What?”
I whispered, “Someone knows about the box.”
“What box?”
“My mother’s.”
“Where is it?”
I closed my eyes.
“Under my bed.”
Luca called security immediately.
They were already searching my apartment.
Five minutes later, his phone rang.
He listened.
Then looked at me.
“It’s gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“Needle?”
“Safe.”
I breathed.
Luca’s expression softened for half a second.
Then hardened again.
“Your mother’s name?”
“Margaret.”
“Maiden name?”
“Hale.”
Gideon went completely still.
Luca slowly turned toward him.
“What?”
Gideon looked at me as if he had just seen a ghost.
“Margaret Hale?”
“Yes.”
His face drained.
“Luca.”
“What?”
Gideon swallowed.
“Margaret Hale wasn’t just Mercer’s wife.”
Silence.
“She was an accountant for your father.”
Luca stared at him.
“No.”
“She testified before the old Commission hearing.”
My knees weakened.
“What hearing?”
Gideon looked at me.
“The one that nearly destroyed the Moretti family twenty-seven years ago.”
I whispered, “My mother was a bookkeeper at a hotel.”
“No,” he said gently.
“She was an undercover federal asset.”
The room tilted.
Luca went motionless.
“My father’s money. Mercer’s disappearance. Your mother’s testimony.”
He looked toward the photograph of Daniel Mercer.
“Those events weren’t separate.”
I stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
Luca’s dark eyes met mine.
“I’m saying someone didn’t choose you because you’re a seamstress.”
A terrible understanding formed.
“They chose me because of my parents.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
Luca looked toward the ruined apartment photo on his phone.
“Because after twenty-seven years, somebody thinks your mother hid something.”
“What?”
May you like
His answer came quietly.
“Something worth killing everyone in that fitting room to recover.”
